While Rhen and Dana might have been the first to have arrived at the old, country farm house that Wednesday evening, come Thursday morning, her grandma’s house was soon packed to the gills with her extended family and their children.
Her cousin Brian and his wife Maureen had been the first to arrive not too long after the breakfast dishes had been cleared away, bringing along with them their three girls (all of whom were under the age of twelve) in tow. Then, only a few minutes later, her other cousin and his wife, Eric and Jessica, had pulled up with their twin daughters as well. And just like that, Rhen’s adolescent home had suddenly gotten a whole heck of a lot more cozy.
Or cramped.
She found that her views on the matter tended to vary depending on what kind of a mood she was in at the time.
And how long it had been since she’d last had her bottom swatted for something.
—
“Hello there, everyone, I’m Rhen’s Auntie Dana. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Rising gracefully from her seat at the kitchen table, Dana gave a pleasant wave to the group of adults who’d just entered the kitchen while her girlfriend remained preoccupied with beating her high score on the game she was playing on her phone, stepping in and setting the tone for their relationship before Rhen even realized what was happening.
“Oh no, no, we haven’t met before at any reunions. I’m actually a somewhat recent friend of the family who’s been looking after this little cutie pie while she’s been going to school up north. We met over the summer when she came to help out at my daycare, and we hit it off almost immediately. Or rather, I suppose it would be more accurate to say that she decided to test me right away after showing up nearly an hour late on that first day, and my hand ended up hitting it off quite a bit with her bare butt until she was ready to behave herself.”
That last tidbit managed to draw out a round of amused snickers from everyone gathered in the kitchen, instantly endearing Dana to the other adults as her cousins and their wives turned their mildly condescending half-smirks on the girl in question, still engrossed in her game and only half-listening.
It was only after their laughter had died down that it occurred to Rhen that she’d somehow become the center of attention all of a sudden.
Wait a minute… Did she really just say what I think she said?
Looking up from her phone with the beginnings of a blush staining her cheeks a soft pink, her stomach starting to tighten itself into a hard knot, she cast a furtive glance toward her grinning auntie for confirmation; not liking at all what she saw there.
Oh yeah. She definitely did. Freaking, awesome.
Dismissing her with a roll of their eyes, the adults in the room once again resumed their conversation, acting as if she weren’t right there in front of them.
“Oh Dana, that is precious,” cooed Maureen, before pursing her lips into a puzzled frown. “Although…”
Tilting her head to the side and tapping a thoughtful forefinger against her cheek, she regarded Rhen quizzically for a brief moment, seemingly trying to decide something based solely off of the girl’s physical appearance and the context clues that the other woman had provided about their relationship so far.
“Isn’t she a little too old to still be getting spanked?”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” mused Dana with an enigmatic smirk, eyes sparkling with undisguised mirth. “But it could also just as easily be argued that a girl her age really ought to know better than to behave the way she does in the first place. Unfortunately though, our dear, sweet, Rhenny here just can’t seem to help herself a lot of the time.”
Reaching over, she ruffled the indignantly scowling girl’s inky black hair and then shrugged at Maureen and Jessica while Rhen continued to pretend to play her game, the flush in her face now bright red.
“I don’t really mind though. You see, some girls simply need a firm hand to provide them with the structure and discipline they crave, even when they’re older, and Rhen definitely fits that description to a T. Luckily though, she’s easy enough to handle. All you really have to do is pop her across your lap and warm her caboose for a few minutes whenever she’s being naughty, and then she goes back to being right as rain. In fact, she’s usually a total sweetheart most of the time, even if she does tend to procrastinate doing her homework and chores, and has a sassy streak a mile long.”
“Oh, I see,” replied Maureen with a thoughtful nod, her husband and the two other adults joining her, evidently satisfied. “That does make a lot of sense… I think. And in that case, I’m glad that she has you to keep her in line.”
“More like she’s there to keep me across her knee,” grumbled Rhen with a half-smirk half-pout, unable to stop herself despite knowing that it would only serve to further prove Dana’s point.
“Only when you deserve it, cutie pie,” chirped her partner brightly, not missing a beat as she and the other adults in the room shared a knowing look.
Then, realizing that they’d gotten off topic, Dana cut herself short before she could continue to further pontificate on her views on child rearing and discipline. Clearing her throat, she returned back to what she’d been saying before she and the others had gotten sidetracked.
“Ahem. But yes, anyway… As I was saying, I’m a friend of the family who’s been looking after Rhen while she’s going to school up north.
Last semester she told me that she needed a place to stay before fall started.
I offered to let her move in with me, though on the condition that I was going to be keeping a very sharp eye on her, she said yes, and the rest is history.”
Smiling at the pouting girl beside her, Dana leaned down and planted a quick kiss on her cheek before straightening up again and blushing slightly.
“Oh, but where are my manners? I’ve been standing here chewing your ears off this whole time and I haven’t even gotten your names yet!”
Clearly not bothered in the slightest by this apparent lapse in manners, the younger girl’s cousins and their wives each took a turn shaking hands with the affable older woman, exchanging polite greetings and introducing themselves one by one.
And just like that, before she’d even realized it had happened, Rhen’s Auntie Dana had suddenly become just another part of the family.
“I think you’ve had enough screen time for now, Rhen, honey,”
Dana prompted after the last of the pleasantries had been exchanged between the adults, plucking the girl’s smartphone from her hands and ignoring her indignant protests as she stowed it away in her front pocket.
“Come say hello to everyone. It’s rude to ignore your cousins, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you…”
Pushing away from the kitchen table with a barely-restrained harrumph, Rhen moved around from the far end of it to greet her cousins properly, waving at their children and awkwardly returning the hugs she got from the adults.
“Hey, how’s it going? Uh, long time no see and all that… How’s, like, life… and stuff?”
Aside from her grandma, Rhen wasn’t particularly close with any of her extended family members. Both of her cousins were well over a decade older than she was, being closer in age to Dana than they were to her, and she hadn’t really spoken much to either of them outside of the occasional comment on the odd social media post here and there in nearly just as long.
As a result, she was practically a stranger to the two of them and their families.
Heck, come to think of it, she wasn’t even sure if they actually knew how old she really was. It wasn’t like she could’ve guessed their ages outside of a vague “fortyish” herself.
Between their not ever talking and the unassailable awkwardness of trying to ask someone their age when you were supposed to already know it, Rhen was hardly at all surprised to find herself quickly being lumped in with the rest of the “kids” instead of being treated like the highly-intelligent college sophomore that she actually was.
Yeah, well, what else is new? she thought to herself with good-natured resignation after Maureen had finished asking her how she’d been enjoying school so far that semester. I guess I should be glad she isn’t offering me candy or something.
Her cousins and their spouses already had their hands more than full with juggling their own kids, all of whom were wound up and bursting with energy after a long car ride with not much more to do than watch the trees pass them by. And it soon became all too clear to Rhen that they were content to simply follow the lead of Dana and her grandma with regard to how they should treat their pipsqueak of a younger cousin. Therefore, it didn’t come as too much of a shock to her when after everyone else had gotten settled in and all of the requisite hugs and kisses had been exchanged, that she found herself being dismissed with the rest of the Mathews’s pre-pubescent brood to go play in their grandma’s spacious back yard while the rest of the adults visited and ostensibly finished preparing Thanksgiving dinner.
“You too, cutie pie. Go on now,” her aunt insisted when Rhen tried to linger behind after the others had gone, attempting to quietly re-insinuate herself back into the conversation about the drive down that her grandma was currently in the middle of having with her cousins and their wives. “Why don’t you go show Riley and the others that tree house you were telling me about yesterday? I bet they’d love to see it.”
“But Aunt Dana,” she started to protest, defaulting to whining before she could stop herself and immediately regretting it when she saw the annoyed eye-rolls from everyone else around her. “I don’t want to go play with a bunch of dumb little kids!”
“You’d better watch that mouth of yours, Rhen Elizabeth,” her grandma suddenly cut in across her brewing tantrum.
Descending upon the unsuspecting twenty-year-old turned teenager before she’d even realized what was happening, she spun her around by the shoulder and cracked her hard palm down several times in quick succession against the seat of her dark blue jeans.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
“That is no way to talk about your family, little missy!”
Between the thick denim of her jeans and the bright pink padding hidden beneath them, Rhen could barely even feel the swats. But they were still more than enough to get her hopping forward out of range of her grandma’s itchy palm as both of her hands flew back to shield her vulnerable caboose.
“Now go on and get, before I decide to pull those britches down and teach you some proper manners, girl.”
“Okay, okay. Freaking sorry, geez…” grumbled Rhen, hands still hovering behind her backside as she fled from the kitchen at a rather undignified speed-walk and made her way out into the back yard, the amused smirks of her cousins and their wives chasing after her all the while as she went.
I guess I’ll just go babysit the brats then…
—
While the adults inside the house toiled languidly away at preparing Thanksgiving dinner, in between tall glasses of wine and gossiping about each other’s lives, Rhen and her younger cousins busied themselves with running around like madmen among the grasses, trees, and shrubbery that comprised the whole of her grandma’s spacious, half-acre field of a back yard.
After rejoining the group, she’d immediately led them over to the massive oak some twenty yards away from the porch and had then taken great delight in showing off the robust treehouse that her grandpa had built for her back before he’d died. And much to her surprise and delight, she’d even found that her grandma had taken the time to restock the plastic cooler she kept stashed away in there with fresh snacks and sodas for them all to share.
Oh Grandma, you old softie, you…
Riley, Sally, and the rest of her cousins were all suitably impressed by her “secret fortress” as she’d always liked to call it back when she was younger (and still did now as a matter of fact), and she and the older tweens had a blast whiling away a good portion of the late morning and early afternoon within its timber walls. Mostly playing cards and talking about the TV shows they’d been watching and what they wanted for Christmas that year.
Much to her own chagrin, Rhen fit right in with them, just like she did back home at her auntie’s daycare.
At first that was a little embarrassing for her to think about, especially after the way she’d been practically chased out of the house to come join them in the first place, but she managed to get over those feelings quickly enough as she and Riley started talking and discovered that they happened to play several of the same video games.
In the end, it turned out to be a very fun afternoon indeed.
—
When at last it was time to come back inside and wash up for dinner, Rhen wasn’t at all surprised (but still very much annoyed) to find that she was apparently expected to sit at the kids table with rest of her cousin’s children.
At first she’d tried to argue that she belonged with everyone else at the adults table, although she deliberately chose not to mention that that was because she was a twenty-year-old college sophomore, lest she inadvertently humiliate herself even further by tempting Dana to demonstrate that as far as she was concerned she was just a thirteen-year-old brat who needed her attitude adjusted right there in front of everyone.
Instead she’d just let the implied understanding that she was the oldest of the “young’uns” (as her grandma liked to call her and the other kids) speak for itself, and pointed out with a pout that they could easily make enough room for her at one of the corners if they all just squeezed in a bit and watched where they put their elbows while they ate. She’d even promised not to drink any of the expensive-looking wine that Brian and Maureen had brought with them, but alas, she’d been denied out of hand.
“Sorry, kiddo,” crooned Maureen with a smug smirk as she cozied up next to her husband, holding out her glass for him to fill. “Maybe next year, okay?”
Incensed by the casual dismissal, Rhen had tried to press the point further, but all that she’d gotten for her trouble were three hard swats from Dana as she spun her around and sent her scrambling back over to rejoin the other snickering tweens and little kids at their own table.
“Quit being so fussy, Rhen, or I’ll give you something to fuss about. You hear me, little girl?”
“Humph! Yes ma’am…”
Cowed for the moment, Rhen made the short trip back to her abandoned folding chair at the somewhat-rickety card table set up a few feet away from the sturdy mahogany one that Dana and the rest of the adults were situated at, grumbling darkly under her breath all the while as she went.
We should’ve just stayed home and gotten Chinese food instead.
Turkey is gross, anyway. Who needs it? Humph.
After that, dinner had passed by in relative peace, and although her pride still smoldered at the indignity of having to use plastic silverware and eat off of a paper plate instead of using proper utensils and the fine china like all of the other adults in the room, Rhen soon forgot about her embarrassment as she began stuffing her face with her grandma’s absolutely delicious home cooking.
Okay, okay, I take it all back. Turkey is pretty delicious. And I don’t know what these tan carrot looking things are, but they are totally rocking my world right now…
Once everyone had had their fill, they’d each taken turns going around the room sharing some of the things that they were grateful for that year. And when it was her turn, Rhen had said without a moment’s hesitation that it was Dana and the kindness that she’d shown her in taking her in and really giving her a sense of stability and structure that was what she was most grateful for.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t met her. She’s been such a good influence in my life ever since that first day at the daycare.
And although it seems like I can’t go more than a few days without a trip across her lap for one bit of sass or another, I know that she only wants what’s best for me and is trying to help me be a better person. So uh…
thanks, and I love you, Dana.”
So touched had her partner been by the gesture, that she’d immediately teared up, slid her chair back from the table, and all but tackled the younger girl in a bear hug.
“Come here you adorable little cinnamon bun. I love you too!”
After that, she’d swept Rhen up under her arm like she sometimes did when she wanted to deliver a quick spanking, and carried her back over to the adults table, explaining that she was going to make her wish come true as she once more sat down in her chair. And so, just like that, Rhen suddenly found herself cuddling together with her adopted auntie, perched on her lap for dessert at the adults table; much to the amusement of everyone else around them.
And for once, she didn’t mind the smirks in the least.
Several slices of pie and scoops of ice cream later, satiated and feeling sleepy, everyone had wound up going their own separate ways to either catch a quick nap or else watch some football while they digested everything that they’d just eaten. Rhen for her part decided to stick by Dana’s side after dinner, and had fallen asleep almost immediately after cuddling up with her in a recliner in the living room while she and her cousins watched TV.
All in all, aside from the earlier bumpy start, she had to admit that so far it had been a very good day.
—
A few hours later, the sun had once again set in the sky, and the college sophomore turned teenage troublemaker found herself being roused from her peaceful nap by a gentle shake.
“Wake up, child. It’s time to get ready for the Trail.”
“Mmmm… just give me five more minutes,” mumbled Rhen, rolling over under the blanket that Dana had laid across her while she’d been sleeping and waving groggily to shoo away her bothersome grandma.
“No can do, sweet pea. It’s time to get up,” repeated the old woman, this time with a touch more steel in her voice.
Tugging away the fuzzy blanket from around her granddaughter’s shoulders, she rolled her back over to get her attention, jostling her enough to help shake off some of the dream dust. She was well-used to rebuffing her attempts to avoid getting up on time, and knew just how to deal with her if push came to shove.
“Come on now, up and at ‘em. Don’t make me tell you again, young lady.”
Scowling grumpily, Rhen cracked one eye open just wide enough to see her grandma standing there looming over her with her hands planted firmly on her hips and a no-nonsense scowl painted across her face. And although it had been a long, long while since she’d been awoken to such a sight, she still remembered all too well the times that she’d been rolled over onto her stomach for a far ruder wakeup call back when she’d still been in high school.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess…
Deciding that it probably wasn’t a good idea to try testing her luck with so many people still hanging around inside the house, Rhen huffed out an annoyed harrumph through her nostrils and then did as she was told, retracting the footstool on her chair and unhurriedly climbing back to her feet with another yawn.
“Alright, alright, I’m up,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes and stretching. “No need to get all bent out of shape about it, geez.”
Unfazed by the younger girl’s sass, Melinda Mathews just rolled her own eyes in return and scoffed.
“I’ve still got your granddaddy’s belt hanging up in my closet, you know. Am I going to need to go get it?”
She paused for a moment then, her lips quirking up into a knowing grin as she added.
“Little girl.”
Rhen gulped, swallowing hard.
“I uh… I see you and Dana have been trading pointers,” she replied with a slight blush and a chagrinned pout.
“You could say that,” crooned her grandma in response, still grinning as she turned and pointed out of the room. “Now go and wash up before I decide to remind you what a well-smacked bottom from your grandmother feels like, you sassy malassy.”
Sassy malassy? Geez. I don’t think I’ve heard her bust out that old chestnut since I was in middle school…
That thought didn’t do much to help Rhen’s confidence right then, and she quickly decided that it would probably be better if she put some distance between her and her grandma before she started doing anything more than just calling her by one of her old pet names from when she was younger.
“Yes ma’am!” she squeaked, the color in her cheeks deepening as she scurried past the smug old woman, racing toward the stairs at Mach speed in search of an empty bathroom to hide in.
“Humph, that’s what I thought.”
More than a little amused by her brief encounter with her bratty granddaughter, Melinda shook her head and then set about tidying up her living room while she waited for the rest of her family to get ready to leave.
“I swear, that girl just doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut sometimes.”
Shaking out the still-warm blanket from the chair that Rhen had been sleeping on and inhaling deeply the familiar scents of the girl she’d raised since she was a small child, she shrugged.
“Oh well,” she chuckled to herself. “At least she’s cute when she’s being a brat. No wonder Dana keeps her on such a short leash.”
—
Hmmm… Well this freaking sucks.
Staring petulantly at her reflection in the mirror, Rhen splashed some cold water onto her face and gurgled out a sigh against her cupped hands.
She was already groggy and grumpy from having her nap so rudely interrupted, and to make matters worse, she was about to be dragged out for nearly three whole hours of absolute boredom.
Every year on Thanksgiving, after eating dinner and spending the requisite amount of time either napping or watching sports, Rhen and her grandma piled into her old station wagon and drove into the nearby town of Redberry to walk along the downtown streets, taking in the first official lighting of the town’s Christmas lights.
Truth be told, the displays organized by the local business owners on Main Street, and the intricate Santa’s Village that was set up out front of the dusty old courthouse were all quite impressive, whimsical even. There was also hot chocolate and freshly-baked treats available from little stalls that Rhen couldn’t get enough of, and some of the more elaborate light shows were even synced up to music and pulsed in time with carols being played from unseen outdoor speakers.
It was all quite fun, and an excellent way to usher in the start to the Christmas season.
The only problem was that Rhen had already walked the Redberry Trail of Lights nearly a dozen times by now. And while it was true that the displays were different every year, she was still confident that she’d more or less seen all that the town had to offer, and the prospect of spending all that time wandering around in the chilly night air ogling a bunch of twinkly lights on strings while her cousins’ kids took forever moving from set piece to set piece seemed to her like just the absolute worst.
“Ugh. Would it freaking kill Grandma to just go see a movie or something instead for once?” she huffed, groping blindly for one of the towels beside her as her face continued to drip into the sink below. “This sucks.”
Finding one, she let out an exasperated groan and then buried her face against it to dry herself off while she continued to grumble several more things into its muffling folds that would most definitely have gotten her mouth washed out if anybody had been around to hear her.
Growling in annoyance and venting her frustrations by scrubbing her face extra-vigorously with her towel, Rhen suddenly stopped as the beginnings of an idea began to take shape.
Wait a minute…
Looking up at her reflection in the mirror and taking in the slightly flushed hue of her cheeks from where she’d just been rubbing at them, her face split into a devious grin.
“Of course!”
Dana and her grandma would never think of dragging her off to the Trail of Lights if she was sick. And what better way to show that she was under the weather than with a flushed face and a warm forehead?
All I’ve gotta do is give a couple of coughs, maybe a sniffle or two here and there, and then bam! It’ll be three whole hours of completely uninterrupted private time all by myself to do whatever the heck I want, she mused, mind already racing ahead with the possibilities of having the house all to herself. It’ll just be me, a few slices of pie, and my laptop.
What could be better?
Grinning from ear to ear now, she buried her face in her damp towel once again and started scrubbing for all she was worth.
Rhen Mathews, you adorable genius!
—
With her plan firmly in place and all of her lines memorized, Rhen at last emerged from the bathroom next to her old bedroom, wiped the smug grin off of her face, and took a deep breath.
“Okay… It’s show time!”
Padding her way down the stairs as quietly as she could, and starting to feel just the faintest hint of butterflies swarming around inside of her stomach, she gritted her teeth and steeled her resolve.
It’s too late to chicken out now, girl.
Reaching the foot of the stairs, she leaned around the banister and quickly spotted Dana chatting away with her cousin Brian and his wife, along with her grandma, all in the living room.
Let’s do this!
Stepping out onto the entryway landing, she schooled her features into a mask of misery and fatigue, and then began moving toward the living room, sniffling all the while as she went.
“Aunt Dana…” she whined, coughing into her loosely curled fist and dragging her feet as she slowly strode over to stand in front of the woman that she knew she would need to convince the most. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Awww, honey, I’m so sorry to hear that,” cooed Dana, adopting a look of worried concern as she dipped her chin down to regard her mopey girlfriend. “What doesn’t feel good on you, exactly?”
”Um… well, uh… you know…” stalled Rhen, her stomach lurching at the question.
Crap.
She had assumed that her performance and the general flush in her face would be obvious enough to not need to give any more specific details about what was wrong with her, but apparently not. Fighting hard to clamp down on the sudden urge to panic that reared its ugly head within her chest, she left her auntie waiting for several thundering heartbeats as she frantically tried to come up with something plausible sounding.
Running through and rejecting every major illness she could think of, she eventually swallowed hard and rallied her response in her head.
Okay, okay. I can still make this work. I just need to keep my cool…
Coughing into her hand again, she looked up at her partner with a miserable expression.
“My nose is all runny and my throat keeps tickling me and making me cough. I uh… I think I might’ve caught something earlier while I was playing outside with everyone.”
Yeah! It was cold outside, so now I’ve got a cold. Perfect.
“Hmmm… you don’t say?” questioned the older woman, one eyebrow quirking up skeptically as she frowned. “It’s a bit odd then that you’re the only one reporting these symptoms since everyone else was out there for just as long as you were and they’re all fine, wouldn’t you say?
Are you sure you don’t just have a case of ‘I don’t want to go out tonight’-itis, little girl?”
“W-What?” demanded Rhen, thrown off balance by the accusation and trying to sound wounded.
Forcing herself to give a great, snotty sniff, she grimaced when her nose sounded like it was barely even clogged, but continued to press on determinedly.
“No really, I mean it! I think I might even have a bit of a fever or something.”
Deciding to play her trump card and end things quickly before they could get any further out of control, Rhen held her hand to her forehead to confirm that it was indeed still nice and warm, and then eased up onto her tiptoes so that Dana could feel for herself.
“See?”
Eyes narrowing suspiciously, her aunt nevertheless reached out and laid her palm across her forehead.
“Well, you’re definitely pretty toasty up here, that’s for sure,” she conceded, before tracing her palm down along her jawline to cup one of her cheeks, rubbing her thumb across its smooth surface. “Same here too, it seems. Not to mention that your cheeks are looking awfully red right about now…”
It took a lot of hard work to stop herself from smirking right then, but somehow Rhen managed to keep her face a mask of put-upon weariness as she pouted.
“See? I told you that I wasn’t feeling good. So can I please stay home while the rest of you go out to look at the dumb old stupid Christmas lights?”
“Hmmm…” her partner replied slowly, her lips quirking into an enigmatic little smile as she mulled the question over, continuing to idly stroke her cheek with her thumb.
Checkmate, declared Rhen internally, the tension in her stomach easing as triumph flooded in to replace it. I think I’ll start with the apple pie, and then see whether or not I’m more in the mood for pumpkin or chocolate next…
“You know, Dana,” came her grandma’s voice out of the blue just then, stepping up to the older woman’s side and looking about as convinced as she’d been as she eyed her. “There’s a very easy way to check whether or not she’s really sick, you know.”
What? No, Grandma, get out of here!
“Why, that’s an excellent point, Melinda,” agreed Dana, her smile taking on a decidedly dangerous edge to it now as she half-turned to face the woman who’d just spoken. “You wouldn’t happen to have a more traditional one lying around by any chance, would you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” she confirmed with a matching upward twitch of her lips. “They’re a little bit slower, yes, but they tend to get the most accurate results in these sorts of situations, I’ve found. Why don’t you go ahead and take her to the kitchen, and I’ll meet y’all there in just a minute, okay?”
Uh-oh, thought Rhen, eyebrows knitting together in sudden worry.
I’m not sure I like where this is headed…
“That sounds like a plan to me,” nodded Dana, letting go of her girlfriend’s frowning face and taking up her hand in hers, giving it a firm squeeze. “Come along, cutie pie. Let’s go check your temperature.”
Crap. Yeah, this is definitely not good.
Rhen wasn’t exactly sure why her grandma and auntie were so insistent on checking her temperature in the kitchen when they could just as easily do it right there in the living room, but she quickly decided that she had much more pressing concerns to worry about as she was led away from her cousin and his wife.
They probably just don’t want me around the kids in case I really am sick, she tried to tell herself, mind racing as she scrambled to come up with some way that she could possibly fool a thermometer. Maybe I’ll get lucky and she’ll have one of those fancy digital ones that you just swipe across a person’s forehead?
Looking over at the VCR and small shelf of VHS tapes still nestled underneath her grandma’s equally ancient TV as she and Dana passed it by, Rhen grimaced.
Or… maybe not.
—
Rhen and Dana weren’t left waiting for too terribly long in the kitchen. After a couple minutes of awkward silence, with Rhen occasionally coughing or sniffling in a perfunctory attempt to keep up her ruse for as long as possible, her grandma finally came bustling in to join them.
“Found it!” she declared, triumphantly holding up a digital thermometer with a yellow rubber duck on the end of it for them both to see.
Striding over to join them by the edge of the table, she held it out to Dana.
“Here you go, Miss Dana. I figured that you’d probably want to take care of this yourself.”
“Awww, thank you, Melinda,” replied Dana, one hand pressed to her heart as she accepted the device with a grin. “I know that we’re in a bit of a hurry, so thank you for indulging me.”
“Oh no, not at all, hon. Please, feel free to take all the time you need,” answered the other woman with casual ease, aiming a stern frown toward her granddaughter as she added. “You don’t need to convince me about the importance of handling these kinds of situations in a certain way.
If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, after all. But, speaking of being in a hurry… if it turns out that our patient here is really just suffering from a case of the Lazy Bone Blues, I think I might have just the thing to help tide her over until a more thorough treatment can be applied later on tonight.”
“Oh really now?” crooned Dana, arching a curious brow.
“Yep,” confirmed Melinda with a wink, taking her gaze away from Rhen. “Nothing too fancy, just a little home remedy that ought to get the point across for us.”
“Well in that case, I’ll leave her in your capable hands should the need arise.”
“Of course, dear.”
Not quite following the conversation between the two older women, but still feeing her stomach brimming with anxiety and nervous anticipation nevertheless, Rhen decided that the best course of action for her right then was to just remain silent and exude as much of an “I’m sick”
aura as she could while she furiously rubbed her tongue against the backs of her gums in an attempt to warm them up enough to deceive the thermometer in her auntie’s hand.
It’s better than nothing, it’s better than nothing, it’s better than nothing…
Thankfully, this time the full flush in her face and the slight shortness of breath she was experiencing from her rapidly beating heart would at least help her sell her fib. She just hoped that her mouth would register as being even a fraction as hot as her cheeks felt right then as Dana turned on her with an impish gleam in her eyes.
“Okeydokey, cutie pie, let’s check that temperature. Shall we?”
“Uh, yeah… Sure, no problem,” answered Rhen, hoping to sound nonchalant and at the same time drained and sickly.
She did her best to sniffle again, not succeeding particularly well this time either, but she chose to ignore that as she tilted her head back and opened her mouth wide.
But the twin snorts of amusement she got from both her partner and her grandma a moment later had her quickly closing her mouth and looking between the two of them in confusion as butterflies suddenly began performing aerial acrobatics inside of her stomach.
“Wha-?”
“Wrong end, sweetie,” said Dana with a half-smirk as she pointed toward her waist with the metal tip of the thermometer in her right hand.
‘This is the kind that goes inside your tush.”
And while Rhen’s mouth fell open once again, her grandma added helpfully.
“It’s the most accurate way to check if a little girl is telling fibs about being sick or not.”
“That’s right,” agreed Dana, drawing out the words in a sing-song as her half-smirk blossomed into a full-on grin then. “Now you go ahead and bare those buns for me, and we’ll get this taken care of in a jiffy, alright?”
“But… but…” spluttered Rhen, face glowing crimson even as she turned and slowly began to do as she was told, hands moving on autopilot as they fumbled awkwardly with the front clasp of her jeans while her head tried to process the impending humiliation that she was about to endure.
“Yes dear, that’s right. It’s going in your butt,” teased her partner as she watched the younger girl’s lily white, bare bottom come into view as she pushed her jeans and pull-up down to her knees at the same time.
“Oh hah-hah,” grumbled Rhen, shuffling forward a couple of awkward steps and flopping across the mahogany tabletop in front of her with a harrumph.
Shifting around with nervous, pent-up energy, she readjusted the position of her elbows and forearms beneath her in an attempt to get more comfortable.
It didn’t help.
“Can we just get this over with already? I thought you said we were in a hurry.”
“Well, would you look at that? It seems like our patient is already experiencing a miraculous recovery,” observed her grandma wryly.
“It sure does,” agreed Dana, sliding in along her left flank and giving her bottom a light rub. “But I still think that we’d better wait and see what the thermometer has to say on the matter before we decide anything. You know, just to be safe.”
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more.”
Well, at least we’re out of sight for all of this, Rhen tried to tell herself, scrabbling desperately for any silver lining that she could cling to as she crossed her fingers beneath her, naked cheeks clenching and unclenching in the warm kitchen air. Aunt Dana said that this would only take a couple of minutes, so if we hurry then I’ll only have to worry about the others possibly overhearing a spanking later on tonight… I can live with that.
“Uh-oh… Has our bratty little Rhen finally sassed herself into some serious trouble?” asked a deep male voice, rich with amusement as its owner casually strode into the kitchen to see what all the hubbub was about.
Oh god. You have got to be kidding me.
Hearing Brian snicker, Rhen instinctively tried to push herself back to her feet, but was held firmly in place by Dana’s strong hand pressing against the small of her back. Deciding that it was probably a very bad idea to try pushing her luck just then, she instead let out an annoyed growl, but otherwise didn’t move. She knew that the damage had already been done, and was determined to avoid compounding her embarrassment any further by allowing him, or anybody else for that matter, to get a good look at her totally hairless front.
Or God forbid, what had been covering it up only a few moments earlier.
“Maybe. We’ll know for sure in just a minute or two, I suspect,”
answered her grandma for her, sounding not the least bit concerned. “Are Maureen and the girls ready to go yet?”
“Yes Grandma,” piped up a polite twelve-year-old voice from somewhere behind Rhen.
“Oooh, is Rhen gonna get a spankin’?” added her eager sounding younger sister.
“Probably,” answered the mortified college sophomore’s auntie for her with a shrug, making her girlfriend’s naked cheeks wobble as she gave them a couple of light pats. “But if she is, it’ll have to wait until bedtime since we don’t want to be late for the Trail. Isn’t that right, Rhen?”
“Yes ma’am,” bit out a furiously blushing Rhen through gritted teeth, before grumbling under her breath. “All those freaking lights can go to hell for all I care.”
SMACK! SMACK!
“Watch it…” warned Dana, showing off once again that she had far better hearing than the younger girl gave her credit for.
“Sorry!” squeaked Rhen, much to the amusement of the gathered onlookers as her feet danced on reflex beneath her, set to moving by the sudden burning sensation that had blossomed in the centers of each of her bottom cheeks.
Then, feeling her jeans starting to shift a bit further down her legs with the movement, she suddenly froze.
Oh god… please no…
But it was far too late for any help from the divine now.
“See, Melody? Even big girls sometimes have to wear pull-ups,”
pointed out Maureen, gesturing toward the waving Sleeping Beauty who had remained resolutely in place around Rhen’s knees after her jeans had slipped down to her ankles.
“I guess so…” answered the ten-year-old, not sounding all that convinced even as she grinned wickedly at her cousin’s predicament. “But I still don’t think it’s fair that I have to wear them at bedtime.”
“As soon as you can prove to your father and me that you can go three whole weeks with dry sheets, then we can talk. Okay, honeybunch?”
“Fine…” harrumphed Melody with a grumpy sigh, clearly this was a discussion that she and her mother had had many times before, adding under her breath. “I still think it’s stupid, though.”
“Yes dear, so you’ve said,” chirped Maureen with only a little bit of strained patience evident in her voice. “Now why don’t you and your sister go play with the others while we finish up in here, alright?”
“Ahhh,” whined the two girls at once.
“But I wanted to watch!”
“Can’t we stay, Mommy?”
Maureen remained resolute however.
“Now, girls,” she repeated sternly. “Unless you want your butts getting spanked at bedtime too.”
“Yeah, whatever…”
“Fine…”
Sounding more than a little sullen, Brian and Maureen’s daughters nevertheless did as they were told, and Rhen let out a small sigh of relief once they were gone.
“I swear,” sighed Maureen to herself in exasperation. “Those girls can be such a handful…”
“Little brats,” grumbled Rhen under her breath in agreement, making sure to keep quiet enough to avoid more swats from Dana this time.
She wasn’t sure if she particularly liked being labeled as a “big girl”
since she knew for a fact that Dana had informed her cousin’s wife while they’d been cleaning up after dinner that she was actually a sophomore in college, but she wisely chose to keep her mouth shut for the moment.
Ugh. Why did I ever think that this stupid plan was going to work?
Three hours isn’t all that long, and those gingerbread donuts are pretty good too. Dang it, dang it… Crap!
“Now then,” declared Dana, derailing her train of thought as she cleared her throat, bringing everyone’s attention back to the task at hand.
She wetted the tips of her thumb and forefinger with her tongue, before giving them a quick couple of twists around the metallic end of the thermometer.
“You just relax that tush of yours, Rhen, honey, and this’ll all be over before you know it. Okay, cutie pie?”
“Yes ma’am…”
Fairly certain that steam was about to start shooting out of her ears at any moment, Rhen nevertheless tried her best to do as she was told.
Oh god, here we go.
She let out a long, low, pitiful moan of embarrassment as she felt the fingers of her auntie’s left hand walk themselves slowly down along her lower back and to the midpoint of the central divide between her bare cheeks, before parting them as wide as they would go.
“There you are,” cooed Dana, as she and everyone else gathered around inside the cramped kitchen got a totally unobstructed view of her puckered rosebud. “Now take a deep breath, hon, here comes the choo-choo train…”
Gritting her teeth against every curse word that was struggling to come flying out of her mouth just then, Rhen did her best to keep her bottom as relaxed as possible, which was a lot easier said than done given the half-dozen or so pairs of eyes all watching her in self-satisfied delight.
Despite her best efforts to stay quiet and dignified under the circumstances however, she still couldn’t help but let out a high-pitched squeak as she felt the ice-cold tip of the thermometer press itself insistently up against her rear opening.
“Eep!”
Rather than take things nice and slow to ease the darn thing in, Dana instead just chuckled softly to herself, and in one smooth motion, suddenly slid the entire saliva-lubricated length of the rubber ducky thermometer into her all at once.
“Ah!”
“There we go…” she cooed, still sounding totally unconcerned as she released her adorable girlfriend’s cheeks and gently flicked the yellow duck at the end of the thermometer poking out from between them with a teasing forefinger.
Rhen managed by some miracle not to make any noise at that, other than to hiss in a sharp breath through her teeth as her eyes shot wide open.
Aunt Dana, you freaking meanie pants. Come on!
“I think we’ll leave that right where it is for… Oh, let’s say… two minutes, just to be on the safe side,” explained the older woman to nobody in particular as she set the timer on the thermometer’s digital display with a couple of quick button presses.
Still holding onto it with one hand to keep it in place, she gave Rhen’s jiggly buns a couple of affectionate pats.
“Unless, of course, there’s something you’d like to share with us, young lady?”
Unable to bring herself to cop to fibbing out loud, Rhen just shook her head and kept her jaw clamped tight against any more embarrassing squeaks that might try to escape from her as a small, irrational part of her mind clung to the paper-thin hope that she might actually be running a bit of a temperature after all.
Come on… come on… she thought desperately, grinding her teeth as she willed some of the flaming heat in her face to make its way south to between her pale cheeks.
Two minutes later though, the thermometer beeped, signaling that it was finished taking its readings, and to nobody’s surprise it registered a totally normal temperature for the bare bottomed girl still pouting in place where she lay bent over across the kitchen table.
“Well, well, well,” drawled Dana in false-surprise. “What do you know? No fever.”
Rhen just groaned, bouncing her bottom once with a huff as she glared daggers at the pitted, wooden tabletop beneath her.
“So then I suppose that means that someone here was telling me a fib when she said that she wasn’t feeling good. Wasn’t she, Rhen?”
Setting the thermometer aside, Dana pushed her back down against the table along her shoulder blades, arching her back and thrusting her bottom out as she proceeded to give her cheeks a few quick, hard swats that sent them bouncing and got her hopping from foot to foot in surprise.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
“Yes ma’am, I’m sorry ma’am!” blurted Rhen in a hurry, not daring to deny it now that she’d been so thoroughly proven to be lying.
“Well you and I are going to be having a nice, long chat about the importance of honesty when we get back home tonight,” snapped her partner as she made her displeasure known with four more hard swats to the backs of her thighs. “You can count on that, little girl.”
SMACK-SMACK! SMACK-SMACK!
“So I’d enjoy being able to sit down on this sneaky seat of yours while you still can, if I were you.”
“Yes ma’am,” squealed Rhen again before slumping in defeat against the table beneath her and resting the side of her sizzling face against its cool surface.
Why oh why did I ever think that this was a good idea? she thought to herself miserably as she felt Dana move behind her and start to readjust her clothes. This sucks…
“Whoa now, hold on there just a sec, Dana,” spoke up her grandma then, staying the other woman’s hand before her furiously blushing granddaughter’s pull-up could be tugged up more than an inch or two past her knees. “Leave those undies right where they are for a minute, would you? I’ve got a little something here that ought to help Little Miss Sneaky-Pants remember to behave herself while she’s out walking the Trail with everyone tonight.”
Oh crap. What now?
Rhen couldn’t see what it was that her grandma held in her hand as she glided over and slid into place against her right hip, opposite her auntie, but one thing that she knew for sure was that she definitely didn’t like the delighted laugh of surprise it got from both her and Maureen.
“I thought that it would be nice and fitting that since Rhen here has been telling us lies,” the old woman went on to explain, her voice brimming with grim mirth as she brought her free hand down to pat her granddaughter’s right cheek with a low chuckle. “That she should at least spend the evening feeling like her pants are on fire.”
“Oh, Melinda, that is genius!” declared Dana as she too patted the cheek closest to her. “She’ll definitely be running around with a temperature back here with that keeping her company.”
“Um… with what now?” the younger girl finally managed to muster up the courage to ask, squeaking out the question as she twisted around to crane her head back to see what all the fuss was about.
“Oh, nothing to worry about, child, it’s just a bit of ginger root,”
answered her grandma blithely, beaming down at her with a fond, tight smirk.
It was a smirk that was tinged with the silent promise that Rhen was going to be a very sorry little girl before she was finished with her, and one that said sorry-little-girl-to-be hadn’t seen on her grandma’s face in several years now. Not since the last time she’d truly been taken to task for misbehaving, sometime back in her early days of high school.
Oh… crap.
As if she were able to read her mind, her grandma’s ill-omen smirk widened by another tooth or two as she continued.
“It’s a good thing that Maureen had a few fingers of this stuff left lying around from those parsnips she made earlier, because it’s the perfect thing for putting some heat directly into the seat of naughty little girls who like to tell fibs about being sick.”
“Agreed,” said Dana with a firm nod as she eyed the peeled and pared root in the old woman’s hand with a cool, professional eye, matching her smirk with one of her own. “Although personally, I prefer to use soap sticks for teaching a lesson like this, I’ll still be the first to admit that there’s definitely something special about ginger roots that really get a naughty girl to sit up and take notice.”
She patted Rhen’s quivering caboose then, chuckling quietly.
“You did an excellent job with carving that thing, by the way, Melinda. It looks fantastic.”
“Awww, well thank you, dear,” replied the other woman, smiling from ear to ear. “I don’t think I’ve had to actually peel a ginger root like this since Rhen’s daddy was a boy, but it’s nice to know that I’ve still got the knack for it.”
Although Rhen was far from being an expert when it came to such things, she was still able to tell just by looking at the stomach-clenchingly long and bulbous root that her partner had been spot-on in her assessment.
And even worse still, although she’d never actually experienced whatever it was that was about to happen to her before, she still knew enough from the punishments that she’d been subjected to over the last few months to be able to make an educated guess about just where that root was about to go and what it would be doing once it got there.
Uh-oh… somehow I don’t think that this is going to be fun…
Double crap.
Her grandma had expertly stripped away the outer layers of the finger-length piece of ginger root she now held, exposing the moist and porous material beneath its surface. The tangy juices coating its length glistened in the light of the overhead fan, and Rhen could feel them tickling the insides of her nostrils even from her spot face down and bottom up across the table
Squinting closer, she felt her stomach do several more flip-flops in a row as her worst fears were confirmed for her. Her grandma had clearly taken the time to carve out a small divot near the root’s curved base, one that would prevent it from slipping out of her rear end unexpectedly once it was in place.
Lucky me… she deadpanned to herself with a grimace and a harrumph that made her naked cheeks wobble again.
As if she too could read her thoughts, Dana smirked and then slipped back in against her left hip, perching her own much wider rump along the edge of the stout table behind her.
“Alright then, that’s enough dilly-dallying, I’d say. You just relax that tush again, cutie pie, and we’ll have Missus Ginger right where she needs to go in no time. Alright?” she cooed, leaning over and parting her girlfriend’s cheeks with both of her hands, spreading them as wide as they would go and fully exposing her to the room at large once again.
“Humph. Fine…”
Ugh. Why does this part never get any easier? You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but no….
“My, my, such an attitude on that one,” snickered Maureen from a few feet away.
“Yes, she certainly is a handful, isn’t she?” agreed Dana with a mock-exasperated sigh and a roll of her eyes, before her face broke out into another smirk and she winked at the other woman. “But that’s alright. I don’t mind keeping her in line. If you think she’s cute now, then just wait until she’s sniffling in a corner with a red caboose. Now that is a sight to behold.”
“Heh. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I think we all are, dear,” chimed in Melinda Mathews, nodding at both women knowingly before turning her full attention back to the target that had just been exposed for her. “Now let’s just see if we can’t change Little Miss Grumpy Goose’s tone just a bit…”
Mortified beyond belief, but knowing that she was powerless to stop what was about to happen to her, Rhen chewed on her lower lip and silently debated with herself about whether or not taking a full-on spanking there and then wouldn’t be far more preferable to what her grandma had in store for her.
Burying her scorching face in her hands, she let out another long, low moan, and then arched her back and pushed her bottom out even further for her grandma and the ginger root she held poised only a few inches behind her. She hoped that by showing a bit of submission and acceptance for her punishment right then, that maybe she might earn herself a reprieve from the spanking (and probably mouth soaping) that she knew she had coming later.
“Yeah right,” she grumbled into her hands before sighing heavily, her groin aching with need in spite of herself. “Ugh. This is so not fair.”
At least it can’t be any worse than an enema, right?
It was.
It was much worse.
Somehow it felt to her as if the ginger, that when last she’d looked only seemed to be about the width of her thumb, had suddenly just doubled in size as its cold, juice-slicked tip pressed insistently up against her puckered rear opening.
“Oh god, oh crap!” Rhen gasped, eyes shooting open wide as her hands clenched themselves together into little fists beneath the twin swells of her breasts, inadvertently pawing at her rock hard nipples and making herself groan.
“Easy now, child, easy… No need to make such a fuss, it’s just a bit of ginger,” soothed her grandma, taking her time pushing and twisting the root further and further into her, seemingly only a millimeter or two at a time.
“E-Easy for you to say!” snapped Rhen in response, letting out an involuntary squeak as a particularly knobbly bit forced its way through her back door, much to the amusement of the two older women administering her punishment and her gathered audience of cousins and their wives.
Eventually, mercifully, somehow, the root finally finished making its glacially-slow journey all the way inside of her, and Rhen blushed scarlet and grit her teeth against another squeak as she felt her rosebud cinch in tight around the divot at the base of the ginger, exhaling out her displeasure through her flared nostrils.
Then, a moment later after taking some time to admire the sight of it fully in place and only barely protruding out of her girlfriend, Dana let go of her cheeks, watching with a chuckle as they wobbled back into place.
With that, Rhen let out a long sigh of relief, beyond grateful that the deed was finally done, before letting her arms turn to jelly beneath her as she sagged against the sturdy table. Her moment of peace was short-lived however, as she almost immediately jerked her head back up again with a panicked yelp as it suddenly became all too clear to her just why her aunt and grandma had been laughing earlier.
Uh-oh.
Aside from the monumental humiliation of having her grandma feel that she needed to take the time to carve up and then shove a rather sizable piece of ginger root into her tush, the burning sensation that its oils produced as they soaked into her rosebud and the insides of her opening left Rhen feeling like she was suddenly being flooded from the inside out with boiling magma!
Or… maybe just hot sauce.
Either way, it was definitely not a pleasant experience to say the least, and she began to gasp and squirm as her now-plugged bottom shifted and wriggled frantically behind her.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” she squealed, the words coming out all at once in a jumbled mess as her arms flailed animatedly out to either side of her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Hah! Well now, that was certainly faster than I’d been expecting,”
observed Dana with undisguised amusement as she once more stepped around behind Rhen and squatted down onto her heels.
Moving at an easy, unhurried pace, she began to tug up her bright pink pull-up, restoring it along with her jeans back in place around her gyrating hips, before then giving the center of her now-covered seat a fond pat.
“I can see that you’re already starting to feel the effects of the ginger. Good.”
“Oh yeah, I’m not surprised,” chimed in Maureen from beside her smirking husband. “I’ve had those roots ripening in the fridge for a while now, so it’s pretty safe to say that they’re definitely more than a little, uh… flavorful.”
“No freaking kidding,” hissed Rhen through gritted teeth, not bothering to wait for her partner’s permission before she sprang back to her feet and began dancing around in front of the gathered adults in a futile attempt to somehow ease the roiling inferno raging inside of her. “Oh come on, Aunt Dana, you can’t seriously expect me to keep this stupid thing in the whole time while we’re out tonight!”
“I can, and I do,” was her auntie’s iron-hard reply as she and the old woman beside her each planted their hands on their hips and glared at their misbehaving charge with mirrored frowns of disapproval. “That root is going to stay right where it is until it’s time for bed. And it’s not coming out until after you’ve had that naughty, lying mouth of yours washed out and you’ve taken a trip across my knee for one heck of a spanking, little girl.”
“Oh yes, someone is definitely going to be sleeping on her tummy tonight,” agreed Melinda Mathews with a firm nod. “I cannot believe that you’d try pulling a stunt like this after I’d literally just finished telling you to behave yourself not more than ten minutes earlier. You should be setting a better example for your cousins, Rhen Elizabeth!”
“Brian and Eric are fine,” growled Rhen, glaring at the wall ahead of her and refusing to meet anyone’s gaze just then. “They don’t need my help.”
SMACK! SMACK!
“Keep it up, little girl, and see what it gets you,” growled Dana after seizing the pouting sophomore by the upper arm and landing two lightning-fast swats to the backs of her thighs.
“Okay, okay! I’m sorry, geez,” whined Rhen, petulant fists flopping around uselessly at her sides.
“Oh, you are going to be very sorry if you keep on testing me, child,” harrumphed her grandma in response. “It’s pretty obvious now that I’ve been cutting you way too much slack lately. Well, that all changes starting tonight. If you so much as poke one more toe out of line while you and your auntie are staying with me, you’d best believe that I’ll be tanning your hide raw with your granddaddy’s belt. You hear me, girl?”
Mortified beyond belief to be dressed down in such a way in front of everyone, Rhen could only moan indignantly and cling to her bubbling seat as she continued to hop around in place.
“Ugh, fine, I’m sorry! I’ll be good, alright?”
“We’ll just see about that.”
Dana let those last few words hang in the air for several more excruciatingly embarrassing moments, before she at last cleared her throat and gathered everyone’s attention again.
“Ahem. Now that we have that settled…”
With those words she gave her girlfriend’s padded rump a light pat, ignoring the temper tantrum that she knew was still brewing just beneath the surface as she dusted her hands off.
“Who’s ready for some hot apple cider and Christmas lights?”
Everyone joined in with the chorus of acknowledgements, even Rhen despite the flush still staining her cheeks bright red.
“Oh! Me, me, me!”
The initial, overwhelming burning from the root’s insertion had started ebb away to only a mildly-intolerable throbbing by then, and at that particular moment she was desperate for something, anything, to take her mind off of the firm, bulbous mass nestled snugly between her cheeks.
“Great, then let’s get going,” declared her grandma, moving over to grab her keys from off the counter. “If we hurry, we can still find a good parking spot.”
Leading the charge, reinvigorated with a newfound sense of holiday cheer, Rhen was the first one out the door.
“I call shotgun!”
